The way that Panic Smile mix squiggly poodle-rock guitar wig-out bits in with their avant-garde post-post-punk rhythm distortions and emotionally taut screaming is just one of the strange things about this gig. Perhaps stranger still is the way that for all the sonic discord that they sow, there are people tapping their feet and bobbing up and down as if this is just bread and butter pop music for them. Which is awesome. Whether it works all the time or not, however, is open to question, with some of the stop-starts and changes in time signature seemingly just thrown in for the sake of it. However, it's never less than interesting, and their constant willingness to experiment ensures that their set pulls out a winner.

The Hasshin Telepathy are both a weirder and poppier proposition, with a frenetic, Polysics-like new wave jerkiness running hot through the veins of every track, and guitar, bass and twin synths spitting dirty post-punk fire back and forth as the endearingly overweight frontman does his screaming idiot-savant thing loudly into the faces of most of the audience and then falls around on the floor for a bit and loses one of his shoes. It's so much fun to watch that the music has precious little opportunity to make its presence felt and you get the feeling that having a quiet listen at home would be in many ways equally as revealing as watching live.

As the frantic explosions of mentalist drum abuse begin, it's clear that Nisennenmondai are operating on a different level to other bands tonight. Both musically and conceptually, there is a coherence to what they do that is both original and compelling. In terms of performance, they exist in a world of their own, standing in a circle, each member playing only to the other two, all of them seemingly engaged in some kind of game as guitarist Masako Takada and bass player Yuri Zaikawa desperately try to keep in time with madly grinning drummer Sayaka Himeno's unpredictable stops and starts. As the game draws to a close they are equally at home and equally compelling when they slip into a repetitive, psychedelic krautrock groove, and you have to love a band who can build an entire track from a sample of scary women's laughter. I think.

The last band tonight, The Warm, are also totally brilliant. When reviewing a band, it's always nice when they provide helpful hints in their song titles. For instance, The Warm have a song conveniently titled "The Fall" and, guess what, they sound a fuck of a lot like The Fall. With synthesisers. This is a GOOD THING. Hata spits out his vocals from his hiding place within his raincoat, with all the pissed-off Britpunk charm of a Mark E Smith or a Colin Newman, the drums are as efficient and propulsive as anything in Gang Of Four's back catalogue, and the primitive, rasping synths have every bit the power of a more traditional guitar-and-bass setup, but with added atmosphere. - Ian Martin, Nov.07.04.